Bridgeport's farm faces shutdown

Brian Lockhart

Updated 12:14 am, Thursday, October 31, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- It's going to be tough to salvage the experimental urban farm the mayor allowed a struggling family to start near the animal shelter, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

"I would never say never," George Krivda, a spokesman for the state's agriculture agency, said Wednesday. "But it would be highly unlikely this could continue with this particular individual the way it's been run."

That individual is Chris Toole, who persuaded Finch that, despite being unable to pay his rent and utilities and owing child support, he could raise 35 chickens, 17 goats, six goat kids, three donkeys and a pig on city land.

This week the state Department of Agriculture decided Toole had not met that responsibility, and quarantined the site.

Inspectors, in their preliminary report, raised numerous concerns about the health and treatment of Toole's herd, where they were purchased, whether they posed a public health threat and the security of the location.

Toole late Tuesday said criticisms in the three-page report do not reflect what he was told by state inspectors.

"Some of them I find to be outright lies and other things I think are very interpretive," he said.

And despite the Finch administration's prior claims that there were no issues with the city's health department or the state, both agencies said they first learned of Toole's experiment from Hearst Connecticut Newspapers.

"I'm in the blind like anybody else on this," said Warren Blunt, Bridgeport's director of environmental health.

Blunt was involved with Toole earlier this year when, having moved his girlfriend and two sons here from New York, Toole tried to keep more than a dozen chickens at his Noble Avenue apartment.

But Blunt said he did not know Finch had granted the birds sanctuary at the shelter.

Krivda said before setting up the farm, "It would have been helpful to reach out to the (state agriculture) department."

The mayor's office steadfastly refuses to explain why Finch considered Toole the best candidate to pilot a farm.

"We will have no further comment on this issue," Finch spokesman Elaine Ficarra said Wednesday.

Meanwhile agriculture officials are also worried by Toole's claims his family drinks unpasteurized goats' milk.

Asked if other state agencies like the Department of Children and Families might get involved, Krivda said, "We are concerned. We're just not sure how far the authority goes."

The state does not want to hurt Toole, he said. "What's the health department in the city of Bridgeport doing about it?" he asked.